


In Alpha In Beta

by evilhippo



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-20
Updated: 2010-12-20
Packaged: 2017-10-13 20:16:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/141341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/evilhippo/pseuds/evilhippo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rose finds herself lost.  What Kanaya finds is something else entirely.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Alpha In Beta

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ember_Keelty](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ember_Keelty/gifts).



> Many thanks to my lovely betas, without whom this would probably make no sense at all.
> 
> Happy Yuletide!

Kanaya paced the halls of the lab restlessly. Elsewhere, Sollux had finally hacked the Trollian interface to display the humans' dream selves The others were no doubt gathered around, watching with curiosity or feigned disinterest as Rose's dream self navigated the outer reaches of the Furthest Rings towards the Green Sun. For the first time in recent memory, if any memory at all, the lab was nearly silent.

She'd been walking for several minutes, not paying any attention to where she was going, when she came to a hallway that dead-ended with a pile of bones. Whether it was the unusual silence or simply exhaustion, the bone pile looked both comfortable and inviting. She sat down, meaning only to have a good think. All of her efforts to belay Rose's mission had come to naught. She'd changed tack and re-evaluated her motives countless times, but still there was a gnawing feeling that there was something she wasn't able to grasp about Rose. Though she could easily access any point on Rose's timeline, there was something final about being able to see moments that surely had led up to the scratch that doomed both of their sessions. Perched atop that finality was the persistent feeling that she still hadn't figured out what it was about Rose that stirred so much inside of her, that made her curious, fascinated her, and, against her better judgment, made her want to step between between Rose and the horrible terrible things in the outer reaches.

She took her portable computer out of her pocket and opened Trollian. The last stable point on Rose's timeline was hard to pinpoint, but after a few tries she finally decided she was as close as she was going to get. In the viewport Rose was sound asleep with a small hooded salamander standing guard.

\-- grimAuxiliatrix [GA] began trolling tentacleTherapist [TT] --

GA: This Appears To Be The Last Point When I Can Contact You  
GA: Its Clear That Theres Nothing Else I Can Do To Stop What Youre Doing  
GA: But If You Do See This Write Back

Sleep welled up from the depths and held on tight. Going to sleep without a dream self waiting to pick up the subconscious slack was always a dangerous proposition. It left your alpha existence subject to whatever horrors could befall, while the conscious mind wandered the untempered territories of the great behemoths beyond, free to stumble upon reflections of any number of unfathomable things.

In her dream she was standing atop an uncertain mountain and time, what was left of it, had stopped. The ocean below was a static surface, waves frozen mid-crest. In this dream she was much more aware of the space around her, the curious proportions of corners and the folds the wind made in the air. It was a sharp, persistent awareness, not unlike paranoia. In the corner of her eye, whenever she looked away, the sky would tear and the songs and cries of the ancient ones would cut through the walls into her dream. She started down the mountain, but there was no sure footing to be found. The bones that made up the summit shifted and slipped away beneath her feet.

The sky shifted again and Kanaya found herself standing at a crossroads, no sign of the mountain in sight. Instead, slices of each of their planets intersected and mingled around her into a jumbled haze of cells and teapots and maps. In no direction was there a clear path, or any path at all. The sky above was empty save for the black echoes of the behemoths, no longer muffled by the illusion of sky. Their song rang out clear, earning sympathetic jangles from a copse of music boxes on the horizon.

Kanaya spun in place, overwhelmed and unsure, and soon found herself sitting in the very center, the sounds and colors blurring around her.

Rose had once tried to explain dream analysis to her, and its utter uselessness in regards to their dream selves. Now, it seemed, only after dream-death one could dream unfettered. But psychology, especially autopsyschology, was not Kanaya's concern.

The sky tore open and in streamed the full chorus of horrible terrible voices. She stared upwards as a figure flitted across the sky in a trail of purple and black mist. The dream reality shifted and dissolved from around her, folding back into the blackness of space. The dream bubble had popped, leaving her floating stranded in the outer reaches. And yet the trail of the figure that had cut across her dream sky remained, far distant now though she could still make out a fluttering tail of scarves.

“Rose” she cried.

“ROSE”

“ROSE!”

She awoke with a start, sitting bolt upright in the bone pile, her exclamation still lingering on her lips. As she wiped the sleepy remnants from her eyes there was a loud clunk in the adjacent room, as if something very large and heavy had just hit the floor. Composing herself as best she could she walked down the hallway and found herself face to face with Nepeta.

":33< rise and shine, kanaya," Nepeta grinned, lunging toward her and making as if to pounce. ":33< she's a cat-ch you know," she giggled, swiftly turning to draw something on the wall with a soot-darkened claw.

“Hello” Kanaya replied with trepidation, taking an instinctive step back to avoid the pounce. She was wary of having gained Nepeta's attentions, especially as she looked over the entire wall. It was covered from floor to ceiling with heavily edited doodles of the red and blue teams, X's, circles, choice commentary and, on a separate piece that seemed to be plastered to the first, the same for the human team as well. Before she could form a coherent commentary Nepeta had re-captchalogued the wall and she was left staring at the bare grey wall of the lab itself.

“:33< you're going to purrsue her, aren't you? i can smell her out there, she can't be fur away,” Nepeta said, her attention now fully back on Kanaya.

Before she could put together a conciliatory retort, the reality of the final scene of her dream collided with Nepeta's apparent nonsense. She hadn't just dreamed of Rose. Rose had flown through her dream. She was out there, somewhere in their session if Nepeta's sense was to be trusted. She hesitated only long enough to make sure her sylladex was travel-ready.

She leapt from gate to gate to gate, planet to planet, searching, trailing pieces of the landscape behind her in her speed: sand and dew and blood and sugar in small swirls and tendrils. Accelerating through each gate to gain speed she finally launched herself through the veil and toward the furthest reaches.

\----------

Rose awoke slowly, groggily, bewildered. She rubbed at her eyes, willing her mind back into action and trying to remember what she'd last seen as her dream self. She remembered the dawning of the Green Sun over the outer reaches, she remembered towing The Tumor into place. She remembered Jade's Bec-sprite appearing, and she remembered waking up here.

She remembered waking up here.

“No, no no no,” she mumbled, curling back up and closing her eyes, trying to will herself back to sleep. She couldn't remember the explosion.

Minutes passed, but still sleep wouldn't come. She tried every trick she knew. She begged the gods, she tried holding her breath until she couldn't anymore. Nothing worked. The passing of time was desperately obvious and so she leapt to her feet in desperation, picked up her belongings in one sweep and flew for the furthest reaches.

\----------

Kanaya found her, finally, beyond the furthest rings, where time and space fragmented and began to meld into one. Rose was curled asleep, black waves stretching out in contrast to the deep purple of her dress until they blended into the dark glint of the asteroid she laid upon. A small line of red blood shone down the side of her face, and a faint smell lingered illogically, appearing and disappearing in small sparks in the ether, green and acrid like burned grass. From this spot the rocks stretched out into fractals, smaller and smaller but repeating endlessly into the dark expanses beyond the furthest reaches of their session. And here was Rose, someone who simply did not belong. She had been out here unnoticed for hours, maybe days; time hadn't necessarily passed reliably since the scratch had happened. How, Kanaya wondered, had none of them noticed? And if Rose had indeed passed through her dream, where was she now?

Flushed with anticipation she reached instinctively for her lipstick. She revved it a few times, hoping the sound would cause Rose to wake up, to face her down, to scold her for failing to stop her or thank her for finally being here.

\----------

There were a number of things Rose wished she'd done differently, but chief among them was not keeping a copy of Dave's map. She had been certain she would remember the course she'd taken as her dream self; it had been so clear at the time, and she was the seer, these things were supposed to stick iin her mind. Once she had darted through the dream bubbles and followed the voices of the gods as far as it would take her she was lost. The detritus from null sessions, wormholes and time traps spread out infinitely and indeterminately. She couldn't shake the feeling that somewhere The Tumor was still waiting for her to direct it into the Green Sun, if she could only get to it in time. Yet she didn't feel like she was getting any closer, and with every wrong turn she feared she was moving further away.

She put on her headset, unsure whether it would even connect to Pesterchum. There was a message waiting from Kanaya, which she ignored. She didn't feel up to running that particular gambit.

She tried Dave, but there was no response. John was the same, and Jade's only reply was a hurried message that Bec had gone missing. She tabbed back to the waiting message.

\-- tentacleTherapist began pestering grimAuxiliatrix --

TT: I think I'm ready to admit that things have gone very wrong.  
TT: I don't know why I'm telling you this. But Dave, if he even responds, isn't going to say anything useful. He hasn't been the same since he made the map. John's not answering...  
TT: I guess you're not either.  
TT: But let it stand that you were my first choice among the trolls.  
TT: I guess that makes this the point on the timeline that we're officially friends  
TT: This is the first time one of you hasn't responded. I wonder if there haven't been deeper implications for everyone because of this. The fact remains that I can't fall asleep again.

\----------

It was only now, watching the soft human doze against the backdrop of empty space, that Kanaya's discomfort began to return. She'd spent so much time watching Rose, so much time trying to figure out what it was, exactly, that made her tick, that she'd let herself forget just how powerful and dangerous Rose could be. It was only now that she stopped to wonder whether the mission she had sent her dream self on had been successful. All signs pointed to no, the most glaring of which was the fact that Rose's dream self was lying here, still alive.

At least, Kanaya was fairly certain that she was still alive. She knelt down beside Rose's dreaming form and rested a hand on her head. She wasn't sure exactly how one was to determine whether a human was alive or not, but at this close distance she could see her chest rising and falling rhythmically. Breathing. That was a sure sign. She pushed a stray strand of Rose's hair back toward her headband, unsure of what to do next. A little of the blood came away on her hand and she looked down at it absently. Almost without thinking, she brought her palm up to her mouth and tasted it. It was somewhat sweet with a metallic tang she didn't recognize. It tasted like sarcasm, and she wondered if it was magic.

A Trollian alert caught her attention from the periphery.

\-- grimAuxiliatrix began trolling tentacleTherapist --

GA: Sorry I Was Watching You Sleep  
TT: What?  
TT: Look, I appreciate your dedication to whatever pretence this relates to but now is not the time for it.  
GA: I Didnt Mistype  
TT: …  
TT: That was me trying to compose myself in a way that doesn't require the undignified use of caps lock. Please take a moment to scroll back up to where I just acknowledged that I've probably dead-ended my own timeline.  
TT: Have you not been paying any attention? I can't fall asleep, The Tumor is gone. So is Bec. And so, I think, is my dream self.  
GA: What I Said Was Exactly True  
GA: Have You Ever Known Me To Be Less Than Honest  
GA: Except When Attempting Your Irony  
GA: I Am Watching You Sleep Right Now While Typing This  
GA: Your Dream Self Is Here In My Session  
TT: ..  
TT: Oh. That is news to me. Hang on

\-- tentacleTherapist has ceased pestering grimAuxiliatrix --

GA: No Rose Wait  
GA: There Is More I Need To Talk To You About

Kanaya sighed, turning her attention back to the sleeping form in front of her. What a difference there was between this harmless girl and the one traversing space on her wits alone. Her eyes fell upon the tendrils of black that emanated from Rose's dream self. Well, mostly harmless, at least. She found herself wondering, idly, whether any magic could be learned from watching her sleep. The reality soon set in that a sleeping human was really not interesting company at all. Rose herself was interesting as a mystery that drew her in, not as a pale unconscious human thing that didn't even have any horns. There was no appeal in a Rose that she couldn't interact with. She'd had enough of one-sided relationships, regardless of the color. This sleeping dream form was not a friend, not a matesprit nor a kismesis nor anything else of the sort.

What it was was a hostage.

Even if she had somehow trapped herself in their beta timeline, Rose had already proven that she would do anything in her power to save her session, and now, with half of herself here, she would have reason to save both their sessions, and this time Kanaya could be more than an observer and occasional voice of restraint. She'd have the collateral she needed to nudge her in the right direction, and to keep her close enough to learn her secrets. And if Rose failed on the first pass, Kanaya would have her here, for herself, and together they would save what they could. She looked out through the sea of floating rock and ash and wondered where she was going to keep this dreaming human.

\----------

\-- tentacleTherapist began pestering grimAuxiliatrix –

TT: I checked with Jade. She hasn't heard from any of the other trolls, but she has heard from John.  
TT: He doesn't have anything good to report, either.  
TT: The evidence is overwhelmingly against us still being in the alpha timestream. Why I can still pester you is beyond me at the moment, but it probably has something to do with being out here in the furthest reaches. I don't think the game has caught on yet.  
GA: I Dont Thing Thats It I Think Maybe This Isnt Actually The Secondary Timeline  
GA: We All Knew That Your Session Was Doomed From the Start And That There Was A Point When We Couldnt Contact Any Of You  
GA: That Doesnt Mean You Didnt Exist After That  
GA: The Thing Im About To Say Is Not Going To Be Sarcasm  
GA: I Just Want To Make Sure You Know That First  
GA; I Want You To Go Do What You Need To Do Knowing That I Am Watching Out For You And If Anything Happens Youll Be Right Here  
GA:Once I Find A Place To Put You  
TT: You know, it speaks volumes for how much I've come to accept this as a normal reality that I actually had to stop and think about how that might be weird.  
TT: But thank you, Kanaya.

– tentacleTherapist has ceased pestering grimAuxillatrix --


End file.
